


walk of unshame

by abeyance



Category: Anne of Green Gables - L. M. Montgomery, Anne with an E (TV)
Genre: Awkward Flirting, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Doctor Blythe, F/M, Fix-It, Fix-It of Sorts, Horseback Riding, Hurt, Hurt/Comfort, Mutual Pining, Post-Canon, Rose may or may not exist in tis idk, hand holding, look - Freeform, until 3x03 id think haha
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-03
Updated: 2019-10-04
Packaged: 2020-11-22 22:04:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20881409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abeyance/pseuds/abeyance
Summary: Gilbert finds Anne with a sprained ankle in a winter forest, which progresses them into no option but confront their recent hindering dynamic ever since the train ride.





	1. a walk alone

**Author's Note:**

> i promise i dont have a foot fetish.

  
  


It was the chill of the first days of November that was starting to sweep the air, bite everyone’s toes and fingers, and coat the ground with the clouds that set far below. Her boots didn’t do much to protect that nagging twinge of cold, but her warming socks and breaches did enough for awhile. So did moving, which she may as well idly been doing - but Anne could not help but admire it all, slowing her pace to catch the last of the critters gathering food for the oncoming winter months. 

And that, although lovely, was her downfall - or rather, the  _ cause _ of her fall. One moment Anne was greeting a scarlet cardinal, the next, hastingly grabbeling upon the betrayal of an icy stick, with her basket full of newly-traded fish from her native friends took into the air like unromantic snowflakes.

Nevertheless, Anne was left without any air in her lungs, gasping for the escaped breaths for a few moments before scrambling to repack the fish into her snow-filled basket. 

Her whole back was wet, with the weather only being cold enough to hold the snow frozen for a few hours during the day.

Nevermind it all. She just had to hurry home before her calves and heels turned numb. 

But, appearingly contrasting, she went to stand, only to find herself back on the ground, her right ankle exploding with cold, uncomfortable heat.  _ Ow. _

Anne huffed and tried again. This time she favored that side, balancing on her left until a tree was in proper distance to lean on to. 

She  _ knew _ not to leave Belle so far out - but the horse seemed to love the scenery so much, she just had to tie her there. It was about a mile from the tribe. But although it may be easier to backtrack, Marilla would have all of Avonlea in a search party by 6 that evening. 

Anne would just have to continue forward with hope in mind.

As she walked (or, more so, hopped from leverage to leverage), the heating pain of her ankle only seemed like a hyper-sensitive frostbite - and she wasted much of her journey checking to see if her layers rolled down her legs to find they haven’t. 

At the point where she noticed the sun was starting to significantly decline in the sky, Anne started to imagine how she would make it through the nights that have continuously gifted them snow for the past three nights.

Not long later, she realized she may not even make it to that point; when she heard shoes crunching the snow along with hers, a distance away. 

It was then when she knew what society  _ thought _ would happen if women were left unaccompanied. They would have to go through a great deal to get to her situation, but Anne was there nonetheless, and she was alone. The quick pace of the other footsteps compared to her limp gave her an unfavorable thrill of fear. She wouldn't be able to out walk them, even. Never mind fight or run.

“Anne?” 

Her eyes widened as she slumped against a tree. If she thought she could handle more pain, she’d bang her head against it. 

“Of course  _ you  _ find me,” she grumbled, low enough for Gilbert to not hear, but he did anyway. 

“I think you should be glad the doctor's Apprentice found you and not Josie Pye.” Anne looked up and saw how he had diverted from the path to meet her at the edge of it. She had been attempting to avoid him, or any inevitable awkward encounter to do with him, ever since their one Saturday train ride. Marilla had yet to relent on another trip - something Anne planned to ask for again on Christmas - and after his drastic change in behavior during the following week of it...the sense of distance that had suddenly been set between them without their friendship being too burdened...well, she agreed with herself that it was the small perk of it all, to not have to ask him to escort her again.

“I don't know why you are insinuating I  _ need _ a doctor. I'm just fine, thank you.” She attempted to push off the tree inconspicuously, but even if it succeeded, her stumbled to the next canceled any believability that was gifted.

“Anne, you're not. Please sit down. I can see if I can do anything.” Her face, hard with a mix of determination (stubbornness) and concentration (spite), relaxes as she notices her fall into relapse.

“I'm doing it again. I’m sorry.” She wobbled to a rock that was free of snow. Gilbert’s hand reached out to steady her elbow as she obliged his request for her to sit. “Ugh!” Gilbert watched her proclaim her complaint in her actions and hesitated to knee in front of her.

“Is that a yes? I can help you?” Anne took a moment to look up at him - the first time in forever, it felt like. She pressed her lips slightly together and nodded. 

Anne sniffed her nose unnecessarily to fill the silence as Gilbert kneeled in front of her, gently unlacing her boot - to not rough her joint anymore than it already was, of course - and cupping her calves as he pulled it off, like a reverse tale of Cinderella - to not strain the muscle, surely - and looking up for her permission to remove her sock layers as if he were undressing her for some other reason - to prepare her for cold’s bite, undoubtedly. It was definitely the cold that brought a new pink to her cheeks, as well.

His fingers, one hand gloved and the other bare to unlace her laces, gave her a sort of warmth that she needed to distract herself from. How his fingertips resting on the outside of her ankle warmed  _ everywhere _ was no doubt distracting enough to be a conquest to over power.

“This must surprise you, surely,” Anne said.

“Finding you wandering through the forest in freezing weather? Not actually, no.” She heard his creeping smile, trying to force the urge to smile herself in response.

“I mean,” she pointed through an exhale, “Me actually allowing you to help me.” 

Gilbert suddenly seemed too focused to respond. But his eyes glanced for her swelling joint; anywhere but Anne. It was obvious that day, and maybe the others she used to treat him so, loomed over his head as much as it did hers.

“I'm stubborn, I know. And impulsive,” Anne took to continue. As though that wasn’t supposed to be exactly funny, Gilbert shook twice with a chuckle and rubbed a precarious spot at the side of his head. “I’m trying to help it, but I find they don’t go well hand in hand. Or cancel each other out. I would like to believe I’ve gotten better, but then I can get bothered by something and anything I think I built up gets knocked down.”

“I take that I am not annoying you right now then?”

“In a way,” she joked, trying to lighten his darkish tone. “It's certainly vexing that you always seem to be where I am.”

Gilbert shook his head as he scooped up some ice to press upon her ankle. He paused as Anne inclined forward. He acknowledged her direct focus and met it - their faces suddenly closer than either expected. But neither moved. 

“I  _ was _ , at the train that day, though. But it had nothing to do with you. Sixteen was supposed to give me some sense of independence - and all I’ve gotten lately has been the lack of it. Especially then. I  _ was _ irritated when I got on the train - when I said those things to you. I shouldn’t have, and I didn’t mean it. It was my idea for you to escort me.. I oughtn't to take it out on you, who was already going through the trouble of doing that.”

“I told Ms. Cuthbert; It wasn’t any trouble. And it’s all out of love.”

The way he phrased it made her catch her breath; before understanding what he meant and exhaling. She only now noticed her clouded air swept across his face from their narrow distance. Anne sat back a bit.

“Well, I know that.”

“I appreciate the apology, by the way. I only acted the way I did because I thought we were past that. And between that and…” he looked as if he caught himself about to say something he shouldn’t. Or couldn’t. As curious as it made Anne, it was kept in as he swallowed. Gilbert picked a sturdy stick and one her socks, splinting it. “It was just alarming. And made me think that things had changed for reasons I was just too blind to see.”

“Haven’t they, though?” his progress slowed as she admitted it. “These past few weeks, it seems like a major part of the understanding we have with each other is missing. I’ve been trying to imagine what it must be, what  _ exactly _ is making everything so...odd - but I find that my scope for imagination has started to dwindle since then. And then I concluded that maybe it was  _ that _ , and maybe I was just confusing the two situations, or maybe my thoughts have just flipped to another side since I struck into this  _ adult _ hood of a sorts, or one going away was the reason that the other was, which is  _ highly  _ confusing, if i may add, and -”

“Anne,” Gilbert gently interluded. Anne realized she’d escaped to her thoughts, her vision being nothing but them. As her focus returned to Gilbert's faces, she acknowledged he was looking at her in a way that a person would be if they had been watching for a while. And yet, she neglected to even see his mouth move her name in it. 

“Yes…?” she searched his face; catching the tug of his grin as he glanced down. Her stockings were all bunched up over the splint. It would be highly impolite for Gilbert to return them to the place they were before. Anne hastily pushed them up as he carefully re knotted her shoe in a way that was only tight enough for it to stay on her foot.

He gave her his elbow to pull herself up, and then took her basket from the rock in his free hand. Anne hesitated, her ramble still fresh in mind, before allowing herself to clasp onto his opposite shoulder as they started off again. At first Gilbert attempt to be polite with his hand looped gently on her elbow; but soon let himself take a sturdier base at her waist and wrist. 

“I have my horse not too far.” 

He only nodded - silent for a few more seconds before speaking.

“I just...I got something different out of the moment. It felt like we were back at the beginning, to the rivalry we used to have. And I didn’t want to go through with it again. So I distanced myself from it.”

Anne watched their feet make prints in the empty white ground underneath them. She hopped to a pause, that made Gilbert glance at her slightly concerned. 

“Can we agree to just…tell each other next time? Tell each other how we feel. No relapses.”

Instead of giving her a forward answer, Gilbert smirked. Anne’s brows furrowed. 

“Wha…” with a glance at her hand, she recalled what exactly he was alluding. Anne smiled just the same and clasped their hands into the bonding shake they did years before, outside of that small cafe in their last moments before parting ways - deciding to end their feud. 

“N-O R-E-L-A-P-S-E,” Gilbert spelled out.

Anne giggled into a smile. They were alright again.


	2. a walk not-so-alone

It was a second or two later, after deciding to stay in that moment of watching each other’s smiling eyes, where her ankle’s pain suddenly disappeared, that they retained their previous position. The bland holding of each other was something of an underlying awkwardness, but their dynamic’s health wasn’t a part of it this time around.

And so Anne felt okay with leaning a bit more onto him, and Gilbert’s hands gripped her less reserved - and they moved faster. 

Anne sighed in relief when Belle came into view; it made Gilbert chuckle.

They made it to her, and it was somehow...delightful to see; Gilbert assisting her onto the back of Belle, what with her mounting leg inabled (It somehow felt...natural, no matter how much her heart skipped. Any girl’s heart would if a boy were to lift her up by her waist. But it was only the feeling of it, surely - because Gilbert was a friend and friends help their friends. There was no romantic notation with a doctor helping a patient.)

Anne felt odd as her left side suddenly felt a means of empty, the warm it found from leaning so heavily on his side now lacking. Her calf found it, though - he softly placed his hand there as she situated herself and took it away when she indeed had; as if she wouldn’t notice up till then. 

Anne huffed a satisfied sigh, trying to avoid the touch as she looked ahead of her. She was just about to say farewell when Gilbert proceeded to take the reins and started guiding Belle down the path back home. 

“What are you doing?” Anne asked, confused. Gilbert glance back up at her. 

“Leading you home.”

“Gilbert, I don’t  _ need  _ you to -” he gave her a pointed look, and she realized he was catching her in a ‘relapse’. “This is different! I’m on horseback. I know the way home. My ankle is finely splinted and -”

“And will need some days of rest to heal,” He interupted, starting them forward. “And something about you tells me that you will try to compromise with Ms. Cuthbert that this accident was not a big need of just that.  _ And _ , I don’t particularly think she will be too happy with you hurt, either. I’ll back you up.”

“Its an hour’s walk.” What he said was true, so she could only use this as a rebuttal.

“I was going to walk it anyway.”

“Why  _ were  _ you, anyway? Why  _ are  _ you here?” 

“We ordered a basket for Mary to carry Delphine in. I was on my way to pick it up.”

“Oh, great. So by guiding my horse home you are not only venturing on a two hour trek, but it was all for nothing  _ and _ was interrupting your chores.”

“It wasn’t all for nothing, or you would still be limping through the woods.”

Once again, she knew he was right, and it was irritating. Anne stayed silent, staring at the barren plains ahead of them. No one was around but them. Anne realized she’d never been in such a state of presence. 

“Would...would you want to ride, too?” She offered. Anne could swear he stumbled - but quickly caught himself as he looked up at her, eyebrows twisted in confusion. She quickly elaborated. “Just for right now. Where the snow is the deepest. With Rachel Lynde not around to...assume.”

“It would be incredibly improper for me to -”

“Gilbert,” Anne stopped him, predicting this argument. “ _ I  _ am offering.”

She may have looked calm, but her whole body was on fire under her winter coats.

“Alright,” Gilbert gave in. “But only because it is about to start getting dark. I would have been fine with walking.”

Anne thought note of his already-soaked lower pant legs. “Sure you would’ve. C’mon.” she shifted forward to give him more room on the back - her imagination threatening to go off to a tale of a far of maiden and prince in a similar stance.but she pushed it aside in time for Gilbert to mount behind her, therefore giving her the reins. 

Her thoughts of his closeness were starting to stray - despite the space he left between them, sitting back more on Belle’s rear hump. Anne looked over her shoulder to check if he was situated before starting off - finding his face showing his thoughts underneath his furrowed brow.

She started them off with a trot; slower than the gallop Anne usually traveled with, but she’d never navigated the reins with someone on the back (she blamed this, her inexperience, and not the obvious prompting for Gilbert's hands to be grasping her for stability). It would still be faster than walking.

It seemed that any of each others warmth had been swept with the chilled wind; all except the spot on the outside of her thighs that his straddled knees folded in on.

The wind in their ears retracted from any sort of conversation. It would not exactly mind Anne; riding Belle was enjoyable in that sense, and usually her imagination would override any sense of bore if it came to it. But in this specific time, Belle led them; Anne's focus was diverted, and her mind clouded with atonement against any sort of imagination, because 

_ Gilbert was sitting behind her on horseback. _

If she had the strength to do so, Anne would scold herself for thinking like that. He was just a stupid boy in a stupid situation that she stupidly got herself into. And it was  _ equally  _ as stupid for her to  _ have _ to think like this, what everyone would assume ifthey saw something that she was just doing to help him out. And for that, Anne decided, she would not think of it herself. There was nothing  _ to  _ think about, anyway - of course.

They went through the last stretch of woods before slowing down for Gilbert to get off. He slung over easily, and it was only then that Anne realized he did in fact bring some heat as it left her with a shiver. 

They made it to Green Gables in a spell, greeted by a concerned Marilla and a confused Jerry in its wake. 

“Where have you been, Anne?!” they walked a bit closer, Anne and Gilbert sharing a glance, and Marilla re-read the situation. “Gilbert Blythe, is that you? What’s all this?”

“Anne had a bit of a mishap, Ms. Cuthbert. Just some icy roads. I made a splint, but reckoned seeing her home would not be a bad idea in the medical mindset.” 

Marilla’s face softened a bit at the news. Anne, on the other hand, was...stricken. She knew that was the best way he could put it without any inferences, but it still sounded like anything else it shouldn't. Marilla caught her countenance and barely buried a smirk.

“Well that was very kind of you, Gilbert. Thank you.” Gilbert smiled and gave her a nod. “Please, come inside. I have some tea ready and you must be chilled to the bone by now.”

“Oh, no, Ms. Cuthbert. Bash and Mary will be expecting me by now.” He handed her Anne’s basket full of fish. “But I would like to take my thanks by you making sure Anne does not put weight on her ankle for about three days. I can come by tomorrow if you would like, see how it de-swells in that time.”

“Don’t feel any obligation. But yes, we will make sure of it. There’s not too much to do around this time of year anyway; none that inherits moving around that much.”

With an agreeable nod, Gilbert looked up at Anne. It snapped her out of whatever trance she was in, and she attempted to dismount Belle as Jerry took the reins. It was no easier than it was getting on; infact, halfway down, Anne realized there was very limited options to do just that. Gilbert's hands found her shoulder blades, though, assisting her awkward descend that left a furious blush on her cheeks. 

“My Lord, child, you really have a habit of this,” Marilla exclaimed as Gilbert passed her to her. “Thank you, Gilbert. I will make sure to prepare some baked goods for you tomorrow.”

Marilla was not exactly decked for the cold, so she quickly turned Anne around with her and started for the house. Anne turned over her shoulder, not exactly satisfied with their parting.

Gilbert leaned on the fence, an amused grin pasted over his face. He gave her a small wave, but made no effort to start home just yet. 

Anne smiled widely at him all the same and turned back towards where she was walking. 

Marilla glanced back at whatever might have distracted Anne. She turned back as well and readjusted her grip on Anne, giving her a small, vaguely intentional nudge. 

“I’m getting too old for this.”

**Author's Note:**

> first time writing for these two, it was so cute! I know exactly where they are going with this story line and I find that writing a scene that explains it all usually helps me put my thoughts in the most order. I didn't get it all down here, but i may make a small sequel:)
> 
> part 2 is tomorrow!


End file.
